We stayed in Thamel, one of the more touristy and western suburbs
of Kathmandu, which probably exacerbated the culture shock which hit after
three weeks in rural areas of the Eastern Gangetic Plains. (Other westerners! They look so pale and strange!) For the first
six hours or so the spaciousness of my room, the quiet of the hotel, the on-demand
hot water, the manicured gardens were luxurious and I revelled in them. But then...it seemed too quiet. Too alien from the world the wait staff lived
in until they entered the gates and changed from their neat shalwar suits into
uniforms. Too unreal and
fantastic....and, really, too boring. It
was a hotel for westerners who’d come to ‘do’ Kathmandu...it was perfectly
fine, but it wasn’t the hotel I most enjoyed staying in, despite the luxury
(and, in western terms it was very nice but by no means utterly luxurious).
Quiet morning street in Thamel
The Kathmandu hotel serves a lot more people than any other
hotel we stayed in, and it’s very efficient at what it does. It also deals with (at times) very demanding,
uncompromising westerners. It’s got a
lot more competition. I'm not knocking
it – just noting that it was less fun than our other hotels in many ways:
One of the reasons the hotel was more boring was because it
was (understandably) aiming for uniformity and repeatability: when we arrived
we had a “complimentary drink” of powdered orange juice – it was a welcome
gesture but it wasn’t a patch on the buffalo chai we were offered at the previous
place, after we’d checked out, when they realised we were hanging round waiting
till our drivers turned up. That’s
partly because I really like buffalo chai and I don’t like juice concentrates,
but it’s also because the chai was a spontaneous gesture by the manager because
we looked hot (“or fresh lime soda if you prefer, Madam”) and because he was
kind, not because it was in his rule book of What Happens At Check In.
Iced lemon ginger tea
We’d had a bit of a game over the past three weeks searching
for a boneless bit of chicken: every piece we encountered seemed to have at
least one bone – we surmised that’s just what happens if you cut the bird chop,
chop, chop, left to right and then chop, chop, chop, top to bottom. No matter how close we thought we were coming
to a boneless breast or lump of thigh we always turned up a fragment of bone in
each piece. We also seemed to get a lot
of ‘chicken knuckles’ which I think must have been the hip joints with
surrounding meat. In the end it was odd
to encounter chicken at the Kathmandu hotel restaurant which had no bones in it – it felt like something was missing.
Kathmandu, and in particular Thamel, is a big city whose
main industry is tourism. It’s understandable
that westerners are walking wallets to many people, but it made walking round
less fun than it was in the small towns we visited. It also meant the wait staff were competent
and polite but not really interesting as people. At our previous hotel the breakfast waiter
was enormously enthusiastic and keen, stuffed up most orders, but got us sorted
in the end, and had a beautiful smile all the while. And marsala chai was normal, not something I had
to ask for specially.
In Kathmandu none of us ever came back to our rooms to find
our bags had been moved to another because of “only a small fire, Sir” in the air
conditioner – nor to see photos of the fire proudly shown on the manager’s
mobile. There was a certain piquancy going
to sleep that night, wondering how well wired the rest of the air conditioners
were!
One very good thing about the hotel in Kathmandu – there were
no cockroaches – for which I was grateful!
I should point out that I only saw cockroaches in one of the six other
hotels we stayed in. The sheer numbers
there were particularly memorable though, and the way they all responded to the insect spray by running around with incredible zip and vigour.
Buffalo curd (not in Kathmandu)
On a serious note, this was a fantastic trip: interesting,
educational and humbling. I'm very
grateful to have been on it and looking forward to returning to the region soon
and to working with some exceptional and friendly colleagues.
I’ll blog again the next time I travel and have something to
share. Namaste!
